Method and means of knitting double faced fabric



'F. HILL 2,214,021 1 mos msmc Sept. 10, 1940.

METHOD, AND MEANS OF KNITTING DOUBLE "1 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Filed July 10, 193

Coffow F. HILL Sept. 10. 1940.

MEANS OF KNITTING DOUBLE mom) FABRIC METHODAND Filed July 10, 195-7 2 Shets-Sheet 2 Co ffon w I Tkr d l Patented Sept. 10,

METHOD MEANS OF KNITTING DOUBLE FACED FABRIC Fredrick Hill, Hamilton, Ontario, Can

ada,as-

signor to The Eaton Knitting Co. Limited, Hamilton, ontari -canada I 7 Application July 10, 1937, Serial No. 152,938

2 Claims. (01. 66-25) The principal objects of this invention are to V devlsea method of knitting cotton or silk yarn with wool yarn in such a manner'that the knitted fabric will present a cotton or silk face on one side witha wool face on the opposite side, so that theadvantages of a wool garment may be enjoyed without the discomfort of having the wool in contact with the skin.

The principal features of the invention consist in the novel construction of the knitting mechanism whereby the cams for operating the horizontal or radial needles are provided with projecting portions to move the needles outwardly to receive the yarn and with deeply recessed portions arranged at regular intervals around the head adapted to draw the yarn away from intervening vertical needles on the cylinder to form extra long loops of the cotton or silk yarn, while the vertical needles are raised out of knitting operation and cam sections intervening between such deep recesses retain the horizontal needles out of knitting operation, while vertical cams operate the vertical needles in a normal manner to concurrently knit short loops of both cotton or silk and wool yarn, the yarns being fed at alternating intervals around the cylinder.

In the accompanying drawings, Figure l is an elevational view showing the cylinder head and yarn feeds of a knitting machine constructed to put the present invention into effect.

Figure 2 is'a plan view of the cylinder head with the cover plates of a set of cams removed and illustrating the selected points of feeding the separate yarns to the needles.

Figure 3 is a plan View showing the layout of the cams for operating the horizontal needles.

Figure l is an enlarged diagrammatic perspective view of a portion of the cylinder head showing the relative operative positions of the horizontal and vertical needles.

Figure 5 is a diagrammatic enlarged plan view of a row of the elongated loops of cotton or silk yarn.

Figure 6 is a viewsimilar' to Figure 5 showing a row of short wool yarn loops knitted into the long cotton or silk loops shown in Figure 5.

Figure '7 is an elevational view showing several rows of the inside cotton or silk elongated spaced loops alternating with shorter loops.

- Figure 8 is an enlarged elevational view showing several rows of the short outside wool loops inter-knitted with the alternately long and short cotton or silk loops, the connecting portions between the 'wool loops being shown abnormally elongated and directly crossing the elongated loops to simplify the showing in view of the detail showing in Figure .6.

Inthe art of knitting fabrics for garments, it

has been common practice to knit two kinds of yarns such as silk and wool with uniform loops producing a garment half silk and half wool with the loops of both yarns appearing on bothsides of the fabric. It has also been common practice to produce wool garments with what is known as silk plating where there is a predominance of 5 silk threads. l I

It has also been proposed to knit a fabric having yarns of different material predominating on the respective faces but such construction either entailed the use of "floating stitches due to the 10 withholding of one or more needles out of opera- 'tion and/or the loops forming the individual wales were in part at least of dissimilar length or depth, so that the flexibility or resiliency of the fabric was impaired and points of local strain 15 set up afiecting the wearing quality. In the present invention two kinds of yarn are fed alternately to a combined arrangement of vertical and horizontal knitting needles and the horizontal needle-controlling cams are so de 20 signed that alternate sets of needles are, operated to form alternating long and short loops of one kind of yarn which long loops are confined to wales on the one side of the fabric to present a face of one material and the short loops are dis- 25 posed together with short standard loops of a different materialin intervening wales on the opposite side of the fabric to present a face of different characteristic, provision being made for drawing the short loops of the first-mentioned 30 yarn more tightly than the standard short loops of yarn so that the latter will be predominantly exposed thereover.

Referring to the accompanying drawings, the machine shown is of a standard type having a set 35 of vertical needles A which operate in vertical slots in the perimeter of the cylinder B. The cams for operating the needles A are not shown, as they are of standard form.

The head 'end of the cylinder is provided with 40 a rim C having radial slots in the top surface thereof which alternate with the vertical slots and needles D operate in these radial slots. A set of cams are arranged inside of the rim C'and engage the jack ends of the needles D sliding in 45 the radial slots. v

1 The machine here shown is an eight spool machine and yarn is fed in from the spools E to the needles by. the yarn guides F.

In the cam set up shown, blocks G are arranged 50 at four regular intervals which are provided with deep angular recesses g and adjacent to the blocks G are blocks H which present angular radial projections h. Next to the blocks H in an anti- 7 clockwise direction are arranged the blocks J and 5 K, the blocks J forming guides to lead the needle jacks inwardly from the projection? to the concentric outward edges of the blocks K.

It will be seen, particularly on reference to Figure 4, that when the radial needles D are in 60 the fully extended position X effected by engagement with the angular projection h of the cam block H, the vertical needles are in the fully extended vertical position Y, and the vertical needles a are lowered immediately following the drawing in of the radial needles D by engagement of the jack ends withthe outer cam blocks L arranged opposite to the blocks G.

Cotton yarns are fed into the horizontal needles at spaced apart points around the cylinder while the vertical needles are raised, and the horizontal needles, being moved inwardly by the engagement of their jacks in, the deep recesses g of. the blocks G, draw the yarn inwardly in a horizontal direction to form the long cotton loops M, and immediately following the formation of the long loops, the vertical needles engage the cotton yarn to form the short loops m.

Intermediately between the points at which the cotton threads are fed into the horizontal needles, the wool yarns are fed into the vertical needles which knit short loops n of wool into the short cotton loops knitted between the long cotton loops.

In the diagram Figure 5 the longloops M represent the long horizontal loops knitted by the radial needles and the short loops m are held on the vertical needles. The wool yarn is then knitted by the vertical needles forming the short loops n knitted into the'cotton loops m as illustrated in Figure 6. The cotton loops m and wool loops n are knitted alternately into wales between the Wales on the opposite side formed by the long loops. M, as illustrated in the expanded view, Figure 8, so that the long loops form wales of cotton which completely overlie one side of the fabric to the exclusion of wool, while the short knit woolen loops in association with the short cotton loops present a yarn surface of a different character on the other side of the fabric.

It will be understood that with the alternating arrangement of yarn feeds, that is, the feeding of the cotton or a silk yarn to the needles at one point in the circumference of the cylinder and at spaced intervals wool yarn and cotton or silk yarn in regular alternation, the construction of the composite fabric is continuous.

.The final result is that a fabric is produced which presents only cotton or silk threads on one side while the wool threads will be exposed on the other side only forming a fabric which will combine the warmth-retaining qualities of wool with the smoother and less irritating cotton or silk surfacing to contact with the skin of the wearer.

It must be understood that, while it has been emphasized that it is desirable to produce a fabric with wool on one face and cotton or silk on the other, other yarns may be used to produce fabrics with opposite faces of a different quality, one quality of yarn being knitted with long loops to form covering wales on one side, while a diiTerent quality of yarn is knitted to form a facing different to the facing presented by the long looped fabric.

It will also be appreciated that a considerable variance in the fabric may be made by regulation of the tension on the different yarns in the formation of the loops in knitting the different courses to insure one quality of yarn predominating on one side of the fabric, while another quality of yarn predominates on the other and as set forth in my companion application Serial No. 152,939, filed July 10, 1937, in greater detail, I proposeto place a greater tension or tightness on the short cotton loops compared to that on the short or,

features of the machine, that is to say, the horizontal needles may be operated to knit regular courses and the cams operating the vertical needles may be altered, according to the principle explained in reference to the horizontal needles,

so that the vertical needles will operate to form the alternately elongated loops.

It will also be understood that the process as herein defined may be operated on machines in which the cylinder is operated to rotate while the cams remain stationary.

What I claim as my invention is:

1. A method of knitting a double-faced wool and cotton ribbed fabric on a machine having respective sets of cylinder and radial needles by feeding different yarns thereto in alternating arrangement and consisting in continuously and unvaryingly operating the full complement of. the

cylinder needles of the one set progressively throughout the entire knitting of the fabric at one knitting zone to knit a wool yarn continuously and unvaryingly in alternate regular courses and at a spaced knitting zone continuously operating the same full complement of needles progressively to form short loops of a different yarn and, immediately prior to the second operation of the needles of the said one set, continuously operating progressively the needles of the radial set throughout the full complement thereof with a uniformly longer stroke than the aforesaid needles to form elongated loops of the said other yarn alternating with the short loops thereof, continuously throughout the entire knitting of the fabric interknitting the short loops of the second-mentioned yarn with the wool loops of the regular courses to form wales consisting wholly of wool yarn on one face of the fabric, continuously throughout the entire knitting of the fabric interknitting the long loops with the long loops of succeeding similar courses to form wales of cotton on the other face of the fabric, and continuing said sequences repeatedly to form a fabric uniform throughout and free from local reinforcements and pattern formations.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the yarn knitted in regular courses is wool and the cotton yarn is knitted under greater tension than the wool loops to substantially embed the short cotton loops in the wales of the relatively soft 

